Duality: As Within So Without

The energy of this 4-5 degrees’ Gemini New Moon puts both luminaries strongly under the influence of the decidedly mutable archetypal sign often depicted as twins and therefore representative of duality.

Inherent in Gemini is an archetypal split that mirrors back to us this concept of duality.

The earliest stories set down in writing, as far back in history as we can remember, recount tales of brother vs. brother (think Cain and Abel), good vs. evil (think God vs. the Devil), dark vs. light (think night vs. day), and more…

The messenger god Mercury, ruler of this Gemini New Moon, is also the god of travelers and therefore often depicted at crossroads, or places where one has the choice to travel left or right, north or south, east or west.

Able to transport himself between worlds—that of the living and the dead, as well as to Mt. Olympus, home of the gods and goddesses in Greek mythology—Mercury’s a solid representation not only of metaphorical duality but of the kind with which we deal daily.

In addition to twins, Mercury rules pairs, such as hands, feet, lungs, etc. Mercury’s talents extend to sleight of hand and magic tricks, such as shell games you find out on the street in major cities like New York. For that (in part) he’s earned the reputation of a trickster, or one who loves to pull pranks on people or to confuse them mentally.

The Bigger Picture

Of the three rational air signs—Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius—it’s Gemini that’s most prone to the downside of mutable energy: confusion.

I always picture Geminian energy run amuck as a dog chasing his tail. Spend a moment or two imagining or visualizing such a scene, and I’m sure you’ll get what I mean…he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going and, eventually, he loses sight of what he was doing as the round and round makes him both forgetful and dizzy…

In similar fashion, those who carry a large amount of Gemini energy, or at times like a Gemini New Moon, may find it difficult to recognize the forest from the trees, so to speak.

We have a choice at this Gemini New Moon: we may plant a seed of confusion–or one of understanding.

Understanding what?

That it’s the bits and pieces of information which, if we allow ourselves to view them as a confusing conglomeration of disconnected, differentiated, and potentially disorienting separates with no inter-connected meaning, will never show us a coherent bigger picture that makes sense to us.

If, however, we can realize through Sagittarius, Gemini’s polar opposite, that those seemingly simple and disparate bits of information are really part of a larger, whole picture, we may begin to gain enough perspective to see and understand the larger tapestry…

Set If Off

Let’s keep in mind that this Gemini New Moon is not only highly mutable, but also unaspected. However, it is decidedly not alone…

What stands out most clearly to me at this Gemini New Moon is the rising tension building as Mars approaches an opposition to Saturn. In traditional astrology, these are the two malefics, the baddest of the bad boys.

But even if we take a more modern psychological view on the subject of these two planets in frictional aspect to one another in the sky—as I am wont to do-there’s a whole lot of growing frustration…

What we’ve had brewing, leading up to today’s Gemini New Moon, is a waxing mutable T-square between Mars in Gemini opposite Saturn in Sagittarius and squaring Chiron in Pisces.

Mars’ approach to Saturn and square to Chiron has been building in tension for more than a week now. On May 18, when the Moon in Aquarius approached its monthly meetup with the South Node, newly in Aquarius, the Taurus Sun waxed into a square with the transiting Nodes, designators of collective karma.

At the same time, Mars came within 10 degrees of its opposition to Saturn and square to Chiron. This astrologer doesn’t get crazy about orbs, or insist that planets must be within a certain degree range before they can influence human nature. Rather, she observes…When Mars, the faster moving planet, shifts into frictional aspect with Saturn, always it holds the capability for ignition, or the potential to set off an explosion.

On May 18, 26-year-old Richard Rojas drove his maroon Honda Accord 100 miles an hour through midtown Manhattan, jumped the curb at 42nd Street & Seventh Avenue, and raced at breakneck speed along the sidewalk for three blocks running over anyone and anything in his path.

Traveling “at a fast rate of speed,” according to bystander, “to me it looked like it was trying to hit as many people as possible. People were trying to jump out of the way.”

In Rojas’ path was 18-year-old Elyssa Elsman of Portage, Michigan, her 13-year-old sister, and 21 others. Elyssa was killed before Rojas’ car upended after crashing into a road barrier on 45th Street and Broadway, near the midtown Marriot Marquis Hotel.

“She just hit the floor and he went over her,” a nearby security guard told A New York Times’ reporter.

When taken into custody, police determined Rojas was high on PCP and delusional (and not an international terrorist.) He reportedly told police he’d “wanted people to die.”

Between A Rock & A Hard Place

As Mars continued to wax into frictional aspect with Saturn and Chiron, we saw another example of this energy’s potential for violence when a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded 59 others at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, on May 22.

The tension continues to build at this Gemini New Moon as Mars moves fast through Gemini, and Saturn in Sagittarius holds tightly to his religious and/or philosophical ideology.

Saturn is lead, or the rock, Mars the hard place in which we may find

ourselves squirming uncomfortably as frustration over any given situation in our lives continues to build.

Meanwhile, Chiron in Pisces cries I’m hurt! Leave me alone! I just want to escape and fantasize about a better world—one where I’m rewarded through the retribution of those who are/were the cause of my suffering.

Strapping a bomb loaded with nails to yourself and detonating in it in the name of a cause is indicative of the lowest form of energies inherent in this still waxing T-square.

As Mars approaches exact opposition to Saturn on May 28/29 (depending on your location), it can make us feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place as the tension caused by this opposition comes to ahead and pops like a pimple or a boil.

Those of us with planets and/or angles caught in this T-square’s energy are being asked to look at any trauma ignited now as a “replay” of past trauma, be

it from this lifetime or past life karma…

Only then can we begin to figure out how to heal—or continue to heal— such traumas.

I Am Not Your Rolling Wheels…

Duality…in the crossroad walkway connecting the Manchester arena and the local train station, a suicide bomber detonated himself at the end of an Ariana Grande concert filled with young people.

Gemini represents youth. This archetype is sometimes referred to as the puer aeternus, or the Peter Pan energy of one who resists growing up, preferring instead to remain eternally young.

Mars is always about taking action, regardless of what kind or its potential outcome, and often represents anything heated, such as bombs, guns, fire, blades, etc.

Saturn in Sagittarius—the sign of belief systems—is lead, or heavy metal, while Chiron, the wounded healer, in Pisces can symbolize an energy apt to weep pity me, I’m a victim, woe to me, how can I bear this terrible suffering?

When I synthesize these mutable energies, I get the image of one who is among, shall we say, the “walking wounded.” An individual who, rather than try to heal his own wounds by going out and helping others heal, feels he has no choice but to sacrifice himself in order to alleviate whatever mortal pain he’s in.

What great irony that someone angry about victimization (Chiron in Pisces) packed himself with explosives made of metal nails in the name of a religious cause (Saturn in Sadge) and set alight a bomb that targeted young people near a place of local transportation.

You can’t make this sh#t up…☹

…I Am The Highway

So, what will be ignited at this Gemini New Moon or shortly thereafter? I believe we need only look at the world around us to become conscious of what’s mirrored back.

Saturn always asks us to be our own best parent, while Chiron asks us to heal the split between our more primitive nature and physical bodies, and our cognitive capabilities and spiritual knowing.

This growing opposition and square from Mars is the match–however, what we do with that flame is up to us!

My recommendation is to use whatever ignites now as a torch to light your way to greater consciousness about issues that surround you so that you may more clearly see how to heal for your future…

What’s wounded you in terms of past restrictions or abandonment in your life? Where or how might you have turned such wounding into the kind of victim stance that prevents you from taking right and appropriate action and/or keeps you stuck in preferring either to be saved by–or to save–another or others?

Mars square Chiron is about how your personal will was stifled and/or you were prevented from taking action. While on the surface, both Mars’ aspects to Saturn and Chiron may translate into similarly wounding pasts, the challenge with the aspect to Chiron is for us to be able to discover where we are all brothers and sisters under the skin and to develop compassion for both ourselves and our perpetrators, whether their sins were of commission or omission…

Once we recognize the humanity of our past traumatic situations, we can view them less from the point of view of a “victim” or “savior,” and more from that of one who recognizes we’re all human. After all, it’s healthier to grieve, heal, and move on, than to carry the torch of our past suffering with us everywhere we go…

Another opportunity is presented to us by the fact that Mars is waxing into a sextile to Uranus at this Gemini New Moon, which provides the chance for us to see more clearly as well through sudden insights that strike with lightning bolt clarity.

Use these insights well—they may be secrets surfacing or resurfacing or simple facts about which you were previously unaware—and they may come out through an argument with another or others, we don’t know…

What we do know is that the opportunity is always there to make lemonade out of lemons!

Long & Weary My Road Has Been

The inexplicable senselessness of terrorist incidents (whether in the name of a “cause” or due to mental health issues) in the end highlights for us all that–for better or for worse–we are all traveling the same road toward consciousness.

The fact that some deny this journey by veering off onto a more delusional path is likewise inexplicably sad, especially when they have the sheer unmitigated gall to inflict pain upon innocents. For all those affected by the recent events outlined above, as well as those going through their own personal tragedies, I extend my sincerest condolences and send out to all light and love… Like many others, I choose the path about which the late great John Lennon wrote–to imagine all the people living life in peace…

Here’s a look at an Audioslave song/video of the late Chris Cornell’s which I feel reflects nicely his Sadge Moon opposite Mars & Venus in Gemini’s understanding of duality…(if you’ve never heard him before, stick with it as the vocal gets better as it goes–he’s one of the great voices of rock n’ roll & will be sorely missed…)

May he, and all victims everywhere, be their deaths self-imposed or otherwise, rest in peace…